Lands of the Linnorm Kings
The Lands of the Linnorm Kings are the homeland of the Ulfen people and are a kingdom as wild and untameable as the people it has spawned. Nestled on the north western tip of Avistan it is a realm of taiga and marshland that spends much of the year frozen beneath layers of snow, a place utterly inhospitable to all but the hardiest people. Government The Lands of the Linnorm Kings has no central government to speak of. Instead it is a series of smaller kingdoms united by their common Ulfen heritage. Each of these smaller kingdoms is based around a single large town and led by a Linnorm King, the only exception to this is the kingdom based around Trollheim which instead has a castellan. The Linnorm Kings are leaders of legend with each king being a powerful warrior equal to the mightiest heroes of any other land. To claim the title of Linnorm King an applicant must defeat a fey dragon know as a Linnorm in single combat. This incredibly difficult challenge ensures that only the mightiest warriors ever become Linnorm Kings. Within their domains Linnorm Kings have complete authority over their subjects. Conflicts between these small kingdoms are commonplace but are not usually settled with wars. The actual number of Linnorm Kings has varied over the centuries but at the moment consists of four. History When the kingdom known as the Lands of the Linnorm Kings first came into being no one is sure, just as no one is sure what the land may have been called before this. While it may not have a definite beginning the legends of the ancient Linnorm Kings stretch back millennia to the time before Aroden was a god. The most famous of these early exploits was the discovery of Arcadia by the Linnorm King Ulvass in -473 AR . Through out the long millennia since the annals of history have been dotted with the exploits of exceptional Ulfen. Throughout much of the Age of Enthronement the Ulfen of the Land of the Linnorm Kings were raiders ranging along the entire western coast of Avistan and even occasionally Garund. In recent years the incessant raiding of the Ulfen seems to have reduced though their penchant for daring has not. The most recent example was Linnorm King White Estrid's arrival in Absalom in 4704 AR. She arrived having launched a daring raid of the Nidalese port of Nisroch after which she breached the Chelaxian blockade (the Chelaxians are noted allies of Nidal ) at the Arch of Aroden before victoriously putting in at Absalom. Despite the long and glorious deeds of their ancestors there is a dark stain against the history of the Land of the Linnorm Kings, a stain that haunts Ulfen life to this day and makes its eastern borders a dangerous place, Irrisen. The land that forms modern day Irrisen was not always a separate nation and once its perpetually-wintered plains belonged to the Lands of the Linnorm Kings. The lands were taken from them by Baba Yaga over a thousand years ago in 3313 AR . The armies of Baba Yaga took less than a month to conquer the eastern reaches of the Lands of the Linnorm Kings, her army of icy Fey and blue skinned trolls enslaved the entire region brutally slaughtering any that resisted the rise of their new queen. Despite this event occurring over a thousand years ago and Baba Yaga's departure of Golarion to travel the planes the Ulfen people of the neighbouring kingdom still hold a grudge. Geography The Lands of the Linnorm Kings sit in the north western most corner of Avistan where the land meets the Steaming Sea and the vast ice sheets of the Crown of the World. Not all of the Linnorm Kingdoms are based on the mainland, the kingdom of White Estrid is based around a group of large islands which jut out into the Steaming Sea. It is bordered by only two other kingdoms, the hated realm of Irrisen to the east and the storied land of Varisia to the south. The Lands of the Linnorm Kings are a cold, frozen place made up mostly of taiga and marshland with much of its geography carved from the land by ancient glaciers. The land does not easily support agriculture though is filled with game and rich wildlife. The coastal areas are kept warmer by the steaming sea but are also buffeted year round by rain and snow. The most interesting geographical feature of the Land of the Linnorm Kings is extra-planar for it sits atop an invisible planar rift leading to the First World of the fey. This rift is the reason for the large amount of fey that inhabit the Lands of the Linnorm Kings, it also explains the presence of the rare and mysterious Linnorms. Settlements * Bildt * Halgrim * Jol * Kalsgard * Trollheim Inhabitants The most numerous humanoid inhabitants of this frozen land are the hardy Ulfen people. The Lands of the Linnorm Kings have always been the spiritual home of the Ulfen, with records tracing the Ulfen peoples inhabitation of this land back as far as the Age of Destiny, though they probably resided there long before these early records. Few other humanoids call this northern reach of Avistan home. Amongst them the wandering Varisians, the hardy dwarves and the fey-like gnomes. The other main inhabitants of the Lands of the Linnorrm Kings are the fey, in fact the fey may outnumber the humans. The reason for the high number of fey is that the Lands of the Linnorm Kings sits atop an invisible rift leading to the First World, a mysterious place seemingly a more perfect version of Golarion that is home to the fey. References Category:Nations Category:Avistan Category:Nations of Avistan Category:Chaotic neutral nations